25 October 2016

Oly, RomWod, TRX Rip, DmC, what?!

OK, so if the title made sense to you, you are clearly a fitness freak and keep up with all the latest trends available. Now the issue is this, I've started giving romwod.com a spin and so far I like it. If you've ever tried it, you'll know it's nothing more than short Yin Yoga sessions. So why are people paying like US$14/month for this?! Well the same reason you would pay Spotify premium vs. the free version. Because it makes life better/easier/nicer. I've signed up for a 7-day trial and so far after day 3, I'm liking this idea that everyday I have a short mobility workout waiting me to complete. I take 20 minutes out of my day and do it, feel good and move on.

So why am I talking about this? Because for the last few years, I have had the privilege of having Steve Maxwell's Encyclopedia of Mobility, which to be honest, is a killer set of videos that really works on mobility on a whole new level. Every time I do the exercises, I feel great and I tell myself "I need to make this a daily routine". I even cut it down to 5 - 10 minutes a day only doing one session at a time.

So why is it that I had such a hard time keeping up with Steve Maxwell's videos vs the RomWod videos? It basically comes down to SSDD. Same shit different day. What I find is that with everything in life, even if something works and works so well, eventually you get bored of it or it becomes routine and is hard to keep up without either the conditioning or the reward factor. Conditioning like I have to stretch after my workouts. If I don't even if it isn't the case, I feel tighter and stiffer. Part of this could be physical and the other part is psychological. However, after a while, even following The Ultimate Yogi, which is also kick ass, it all boils down to the freshness factor. I guess just the idea that something new is awaiting you daily is exciting enough for you to want to not only check it out but do it because now you don't want to skip a stone in your path (which works nicely in my dontbreakthechain.com thing I do, thanks Jerry Seinfeld)

Now, has it helped me? It's hard to say. I mean I read a lot of reviews and people are praising how they have opened up with the daily romwod exercises, but take away the branding and compare it to my combo of workouts and stretches/rolling/massages and I can't really say if it's beneficial. I'll be honest, I went to the gym today to work on my Olympic lifts and I was performing very well, so well I went to join a TRX Rip Circuit class afterwards and still wasn't lying on the floor dead. Did I just get fitter? It could be too many factors but what I can say is that the romwod idea wins only because of the freshness factor. Nothing's stopping me from going to youtube and following random channels with yin yoga sessions that give me something new, but in the case of romwod, it's structured.

And then it dawned on me, I have become one of those people that have hit a point in his life, he's willing to pay for someone/something to tell me what to do. What the hell?

And all the years of never understanding why people would pay so much money for vacations that involved tour guides, for wedding planners, for assistants made sense to me. At some point, you've done what you do enough that you don't want to do it anymore, you still need to get it done, but you don't need to do it yourself. Interestingly, I'm hitting that point in my life, perhaps I've done it so much that I feel my time is more suited for other things. So instead of spending 10 minutes to think of some new mobility exercises to excite me, I'd rather pay someone to do that thinking for me, so I could use those 10 minutes to do something else that I enjoy more.

Speaking of not using your brain, I recently started playing Devil May Cry, perfect button bashing gaming and 15 hours later of gameplay I finished it. Fantastic game, totally perfect for times when you're just so tired of working and want to do something other than watch a movie or comedy.
Thanks to that, I have now re-ignited my gaming addiction, which as much as makes me feel guilty at times, is a pleasant thing to have because at times when I want to switch my brain off but can't or don't want to because of that guilty feeling, a game is able to drain away hours of my life, just enough for me to subconsciously re-boot. Heck, it even works on my eye hand coordination skills, so for all you know, I might be improving on my Olympic lifting because my brain to hand connection has improved?

Either way, hopefully in the next 10 days I won't break the chain, I will improve on all aspects of my life and I will have finished another game in my steam library.

15 October 2016

Good mornin' Vietnam

Well hello there. I'm currently in Vietnam on board a cruise ship snuggled in the corner of my room in the crew cabins taking care of my to do list as I await the show manager to call me back to see if I have to perform tonight or tomorrow.

So the deal was I got on board today, received my welcome letter and it said I'll be performing tomorrow night. Awesome, tomorrow's the last night of the cruise which means I get to do my act, then they have the "Goodbye from the crew" segment where they invite people from different departments on board to say goodbye to the guests. Very cool to be the closing show of this trip.

I go out, indulge in some totally unnecessary feeding at their buffet, come back slightly regretting it and thinking "well I can go to the gym tonight" only to receive a call from the stage manager that the performers for tonight's show are having some technical problems and I need to be on stand by to perform. Eeek! I hate being on edge like this, not because I don't want to perform, but it's like "So? Yes? No?" and I suddenly feel shackled because I don't want to move forward with anything until I have this resolved.
I intended on taking advantage of the peace of the cruise while everyone else in out in town till tonight to slip in a bit of yoga and stretch out, but now it's like "...so do I shave? Or shower?" Hopefully before the end of this blog entry, I'll know. They said they'll inform me by 5pm and it's 4:59pm so fingers crossed (I'm leaning on wanting to perform tomorrow mostly because that was the original plan).

Otherwise, things have been good hectic recently, but now that I'm on the cruise ship, I'll be locking myself down and getting my work done since I don't really want to walk around much this time (it's only for 2 days and it's a smaller cruise), so other than the gym, the buffet and the stage, I'll probably be snuggled up in the corner in my room.

On my way here, I watched a documentary about eSports, it's so fascinating learning about these pro gamers and how they "practice", kind of makes me realize that even in comedy, it's really kind of weird how we practice at open mic nights or at real shows, throwing in new ideas just to test the waters. I love how it's so ab-normal in a way, because I'd hate to be in my room all day cranking out joke after joke, reciting it in front of a mirror until it's perfect.

OK 5pm, no sign yet. Well I did want to spend some time meditating on this cruise and hey guess what, this is perfect practice for my patience.

Anyhoo, just wanted to check in see how things are. The last few days have been up and down really so these 2 days on the ship will do me good (not my waistline though).

Oh, my olympic lifting has improved. Still struggling on dipping fast with the snatches, but cleans are going well, my body is properly coordinated. Snatch. You need to behave.

10 October 2016

This blog be 9.5 years old ya'll! (WTF!?)

Woah, so this major blog entry is like 2 months late and this blog is now 9.5 years old. O. m. G.! WTF!?

So much has happened in the last 6 months. On a cool note, I finally hit my 10% body fat target I've had for a while and I'm back to good ol' Olympic lifting training. I'm writing this with a slight injured left wrist, I think from just too much weight while I was doing overhead squats (by the way, I'm over-head squatting 38kg x 6 reps easily now. Yes, I know, that's no big deal, but it's a record for me, to do that properly).

Also, I've learned the art of the hand stand and man it's all about the wrists I see, being tight, being a stick and controlling your hand stand with your wrists. Man that'll take a while for me to master but still it's very cool stuff and I aim to practice it all the time. I'm definitely way stronger already. I've currently got the clean, snatch, splits learned but need to not only practice it but get it into my muscle memory so I'm focusing on the over all technique rather than still trying to walk myself through it. As for the hand stand, I've got the concept down, now it's strength.

Also, I'm working on my vertical jump and right now I've been re-doing my whole walking/legs technique where I use more of my gluteals to walk and explode from. It's annoying because turns out all along I've been using my legs but not much butt so my explosion isn't as powerful as it should/could be....getting there.

I've also moved to a new place with my mom which is a big step for us and now it's down to the last 12 months before I finally buy a place. Renting sucks mostly because I feel so limited. Like every nail in the wall feels like "do I really want this?" to the point it's de-motivating. Especially now when I'm like "OMG I could do this this that that!" The cool thing is I get so much sunlight now I don't even turn on my lights until it's super dark outside. It's super quiet and I've started to minimize everything I had. I really do like minimalism, it's awesome.

And yeah, recently a lot has happened in my life, a lot of positivity and my mood has definitely improved a lot. I guess maybe it's because things are falling into place a lot more now, like I said, it's like after all that time of planting seeds, and watching the fruits start, I'm noticing a few fruits on the tree and now, every now and then, I can treat myself to them without worrying about running out :)

So yeah, the last 6 months has been a total change in a lot of aspects which makes me wonder what the next  6 months will bring. I'm still listening to Bill Burr's podcast and loving it and started Joe Rogan's as well. Oh I got Spawn 1 - 100 on Comixology which means I got a tonne to read, not to mention a line of things to watch on netflix as well as audiobooks to go through. Basically, I literally had a "when bored do this" list or "when don't know what to do, do this" list :P

Interesting eh? Well that's how things should be. Oh, and where I stay now, it's near the hiking trail I used to go to when I first started this blog. Oddly, now that I'm closer to it, I am less inclined to trek up that trail. Ahaha oh proximity, you weird concept you.